WWN52 : Starting a creative project on the side

Well, week fifty-two of the new and improved Write Way Newsletter.

Which would be one year, but it’s slightly more because last year I had a few weeks here and there where I wasn’t ready to send it.

One of my abiding principles with email is that it should always be worth your time to open and read.

I will never send something for the sake of sending something.

(However much the CAW-CAWs croak about muh CoNsiSteNcY!)

Hence why this is coming out a bit later than normal…

But being a year and a bit in, hitting the milestone of 52 newsletters (in this form), I decided it was a good time to answer this question that also came in this week, from Cabin Crewmember Codename “Phantom”.

There’s a TL;DR in bold, but it’s worth reading the whole question to get the nuance.

We’re going deep with this one…

Well, Codename Phantom has already taken the number one piece of advice I give anyone who wants to do creative projects on the side and monetize them.

It’s the least popular advice you can give.

But I never started this list to be popular, I started it to actually help people amid all the crowing of CAW-CAWs who pull content out their behinds and never write anything.

And so, I repeat this advice for all those who are not already taking it.

Step one to making money from creative projects is:

Go and get a job!

Yes, there are a billion ways to monetise your creativity online. Yes, I even sell some of them like Kieran Drew’s courses, or Masterclass 24/7, or the Ghostletter Seminars with Wade.

But step numero uno is what it always is:

Remove financial stress from your life.

I know, you’re a writer. I know that for some of you, like me, creative expression, wrestling with words, all of that feels more necessary than breathing some days.

But it’s not.

We’re dealing with high up on Maslow’s Hierarchy here, okay?

If your brain is fixated on making sure your family is fed, you have bills to pay, and you have no friends?

You’re gonna have a bad time trying to write.

Creative projects take time to take off. That time could be measured in months, or in decades. You need to have a financial plan that doesn’t rely on wishful thinking.

You have to assume that your creative project will never make a darned penny and figure out how you’re going to meet your obligations based on that. Then you’ll be in a stress-free zone and you can great your best works.

Otherwise you’ll always be a slave to “what works” and never create anything that excites you. You’ll always be sending things out with desperation because you have no way to pay the bills if it doesn’t work.

If you’re in debt, don’t have enough to make ends meet, need a bit of a boost to feel secure?

Deal with that first.

Yes, you have swing in your step. You want to get out and get going, but dear reader I cannot stress this enough.

Fix the floor before you start dancing.

If you don’t have a job that covers your bills while leaving some time to write, then go get one. Or build one, whatever it takes. Heck, go be Elon’s Baby Momma or marry a rich heiress.

(Don’t do that. That was a joke.)

But the point was serious. The first thing you do is get one of those dead-end boring jobs that gurus love to hate. And yes, job, not build your own business that will suck up 99% of your creative energy and leave you no time to write.

Trust me. The job with the reliable paycheck is not killing your dreams, it’s funding them.

There are ways to do that with a business, like the Ghostletter model that Wade and I teach a couple times a year, where you take on reliable monthly-recurring newsletter ghostwriting jobs that pay the bills and leave you free to focus on creative projects on the side.

But building your own brand and newsletter etc.?

That’s something to do after you have a basic income sorted.

Codename Phantom has got that part sorted, but I wanted to hammer it home for those as are hard of hearing at the back.

Get. A. Job.

Pay the bills, and then work on the skills.

The reason is that you’ll never be able to dedicate time and focused attention to writing if you have to freak out all the time because you’re barely making ends meet.

There is a second thing that Codename Phantom got right. But what with the long question and the lengthy response and all that, we’re already running long.

So here’s the deal.

If anyone else has questions on this topic, fire them right over in reply, and I’ll continue in part two next week, looking at the second thing Codename Phantom gets right…

…and likely a part three in two weeks time where we knuckle down to look at what he’s really asking. So be patient, dear Phantom, and I shall answer thee.

Oh, and I mentioned the Ghostletter Seminars a few times in passing. We will definitely be running another cohort later this year. After the success of the last two, we’re planning to raise the price significantly and increase the number of spots, and it will sell out pretty quick.

Click the button below to join the waitlist and get advance notice when it launches in a few months:

And if you really want to be safe, join the Cabin and get my daily emails. They always get advance notice of what’s going on… Link is below.

Until next week, may your boring old job fill your tobacco jars and keep your creative cranium catered for,

Yours,

James Carran, Craftsman Writer

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